Ditanu

Ditanu (also read Didanu) is the individuated head of the deified royal dead of Ugarit. The funerary liturgy KTU 1.161, performed at the burial of Niqmaddu III under his successor Ammurapi, summons 'the assembly of Ditanu' together with the ancient Rapiuma to receive offerings and to bless the new king and the city. In the Kirta epic the hero's promised offspring are to be exalted 'in the midst of the Rapiuma of the earth, in the gathering of the assembly of Ditanu'. The name matches that of the Amorite Ditanu/Tidanu tribe, from which the Assyrian King List and the genealogy of the Hammurabi dynasty also derive early ancestors, making Ditanu a rare pan-Levantine and Mesopotamian dynastic eponym elevated to cultic status.

Domains

• ancestral dead

Powers

• to receive funerary offerings and extend blessing from the underworld to the reigning king and his house

Sources

• Dennis Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, SBL Writings from the Ancient World 10, Society of Biblical Literature, 2002
• Amar Annus, 'Are There Greek Rephaim? On the Etymology of Greek Meropes and Titanes', Ugarit-Forschungen 31, 1999
• Brian B. Schmidt, Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition, Mohr Siebeck, 1994